


Until It's Gone

by KitsuneMask



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS
Genre: Gen, Yusaku has shit taste in friends confirmed, Yusaku's an idiot confirmed, depends on how u see it, i guess maybe datastorm, reasons why Shoichi will betray Yusaku: this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-15
Updated: 2018-07-15
Packaged: 2019-06-11 02:21:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15305307
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KitsuneMask/pseuds/KitsuneMask
Summary: You never notice glass unless it's broken.(Or: Yusaku trusts Ryoken and this is the end result)





	Until It's Gone

**Author's Note:**

> first fanfic. inspired by Scotty Sire's "Mister Glassman"

Shoichi stands before him.

Yusaku reaches for the man, falters, and then lets his hand fall at his side. He looks at the ground, opening his mouth, turning to meet Shoichi…but his voice gets caught as Shoichi’s hateful gaze pins him in place, silver eyes burning with malice from the shadows of the skyscrapers standing all around them.

Caged.

Yusaku feels caged.

Trapped.

Confused.

_Vulnerable._

He tries to speak, to say _something_ , but is immediately cut off.

“Don’t even try,” Shoichi says. “I’m disappointed, Yusaku. You trusted the Knights of Hanoi and look where it got you. No Ai. No Takeru. No Jin.”

“Kusanagi-san, I’m-!”

“ _Sorry doesn’t cut it, Yusaku_ ,” Shoichi spits, anger so raw in his voice that Yusaku can feel its blades cut into him. “You trusted Ryoken. You let him play you for a fool. I warned you, we all did. And now…now you’re alone.”

Shoichi spins on his heels, unwilling to speak anymore. Yusaku watches him, trying to speak, to plead, to _beg_ , but the words are so garbled in his throat that he chokes on them. He’s shivering, shaking, skin devoid of all color as he stumbles forward.

“K-Kusanagi-san,” he reaches for the man, desperation fueling his steps, “wait, Kusanagi-!”

He reaches for the man’s sleeves but is flung back. Shoichi spins around, teeth bared and an aura of fury steaming from his body in boiling coils. “You blew it, Yusaku,” the man says, his voice low and full of disapproval. “And, had you listened to me, to Ai, to _Takeru_ , none of this would have happened.”

Shoichi walks away, but Yusaku doesn’t have the heart to chase after him. Instead, he merely watches Shoichi disappear into the distance, becoming nothing more than a dot before he pulls his legs to his chest and looks at his hands.

“I…” He says. “I…didn’t mean for this to happen. _Please_. No. Don’t...don't go...I...I didn't meant for this to happen!”

___

Yusaku isn’t sure where he went wrong.

Well, that’s a bit of a lie. Because, even if Yusaku tells himself that, he knows _exactly_ where everything went wrong.

It all started with Revolver’s return. Yusaku had been happy to see Revolver’s return, even overjoyed to see the man step back onto the scene, reclaiming his prestigious place as the leader of the Knights of Hanoi. However, with the return of Hanoi came conflicts that arose between Yusaku and his team-mates.

For one, Ryoken had approached Yusaku personally, alone and without his family members, in order to strike up a temporary alliance.

“You want to know about Bowman just as much as we do,” Ryoken had said, his voice composed in a quiet and serious manner, “and therefore it might be beneficial for us to work as a team in order to acquire information. Do you wish to work alongside us?”

Yusaku had nearly given a “yes”, enthusiastic about a chance to get Ryoken to recognize him, when Takeru had clasped his hand and shook his head.

“Can we give you an answer in two days time? I’m afraid we can’t just immediately agree to an alliance without careful consideration.”

Something had flickered in Ryoken’s striking blue eyes, something that, in hindsight, Yusaku recognized as a flare of irritation. “Very well. Do as you please.”

And then the boy had fled the scene, giving enough time to watch him disappear before Takeru rounded on Yusaku, worry flaring in his eyes.

“Yusaku,” the boy had said, words calm and considerate, “we can’t trust him. You know that, right?”

He had insisted otherwise. “He’s a good person!” Yusaku had protested. “You don’t know him as well as I do, Takeru.”

“That’s true. But I do know he’s a cyberterrorist and that he attempted mass-genocide before. Whatever you may think about him, it’s hard to deny what he’s done.”

Yusaku had opened his mouth and then, anger biting at his tongue, snapped back: “Just because he’s done some bad things doesn’t mean he isn’t a good person.”

“ _Yusaku-“_

“No, we’re done,” his voice had been cold and icy, slick with frost. “Regardless of what you say, I trust him.”

And Takeru’s gaze had widened, hurt drawn all across the boy’s face as he shook his head and stepped away. “I only want to help you,” he says, “please, if nothing else, remember that.”

But Yusaku had already pushed past him, intent on giving no reply.

Ryoken could be trusted. Despite what Takeru said, he could.

Yusaku refused to believe otherwise.

___

Ai and Shoichi, much like Takeru, had also urged Yusaku to think against forging an alliance.

“He’s not worth it,” Ai had stated. “He wants to kill me, remember? You can’t let that guy get any closer to you than he already has.”

“He’s a good person. He wouldn’t do anything so underhanded as to kill you when I’m around.”

“I seem to recall an incident with Ghost Girl and Blue Angel,” Ai says with panicked flailing of his arms. “Remember? He put Blue Angel into a coma and then forced Ghost Girl into a duel with him without her consent! You can’t tell me that _wasn’t_ underhanded!”

“He had his reasons.”

Shoichi had shook his head. “You do realize that reason was to destroy all of technology just so he could kill Ai, right?”

“He didn’t understand what he was doing,” Yusaku shakes his head, insistent on the truth. “He was misled. His father misled him.”

“The same father who’s dead right now? Who no longer has control over Revolver and yet Hanoi claims that its purpose is still killing the Ignis?”

Yusaku shakes his head, refusing to believe such nonsensical sentiments. “You both don’t know him like I do. Trust me. He’s a good person. He saved me.”

“Saving the life of six kids doesn’t negate the fact that he tried to kill millions of others, Yusaku,” Shoichi returns with something akin to annoyance teetering on the ends of his voice. “Listen, both Takeru and Ai have already said it, so I’ll say my part too: _You can’t trust Ryoken Kogami_.”

The boy had stood up, slamming the palms of his hands on the edge of a table that served as their conversational setting.

“I don’t get you all. It’s not that hard to see. Ryoken is someone I trust with my life: there’s no way he’d do anything to betray me.”

With that said, he’d stormed off, refusing to believe anything more that was spouted from Shoichi’s lips.

There was no way that Ryoken could do something so selfish.

Not him.

No way.

___

But, Yusaku had been blinded. He’d been led around with a blindfold of his own making, an ass guided by an apple on a string. He believed so strongly in Ryoken, so foolishly, that when the time of truth came he crumbled down in denial and disbelief.

Ryoken had stood before him, an Ai in one hand and Takeru’s data in another, the golden eyes of his Link VRAINS avatar gloating as he watched Yusaku fall onto the ground.

“You’re a fool, Playmaker,” the man had said, spitting with disgust and disapproval. “You’re so blinded by your ideal image of me that you’ve purged yourself into a prison of your own making.”

“Re…volver,” he’d croaked, reaching a hand up for the man he’d so craved to see things his way.

“To think you would be so easily played into the palm of my hand. I thought you had more dignity and wits than that.” Revolver had stared down at Yusaku, his yellow eyes devoid of anything other than smug pride and arrogance. “Farewell, then, Playmaker.”

The man had disappeared, taking Ai and Takeru with him. Yusaku had watched as he’d vanished, watched as he left Link VRAINS with two important treasures in his hands.

He’d been wrong about Ryoken. He truly had.

But, even as Ryoken walked away with the things Yusaku held dear to him, he continued to cling onto the hope that Ryoken was, underneath it all, a good person.

___

Alone.

Yusaku wandered alone.

Through the streets of Den City did he travel, bent on going everywhere and nowhere. The streets of Den City closed in upon him, creating narrow walls which his shoulders hit with every step. There was nothing warm about the harsh street lights which poured over him or the icy night chill which bit at his skin. There was nothing familiar about the places he’s seen numerous times before or nostalgic about the spots where he’s made his memories. The world was a place of cold and misery, a desolate hell of his own making.

So many faces passed by him, but none of which took the time to offer him a ride or an idle string of chat. There was no hotdog wagon to wash away the coldness of the night or an AI ‘s chatter to keep his sleep-deprived self from thoughts of sleeping on a park bench. There was no boy who greeted him at the gate of school, who offered him plans and strategies for their next plan of attack. Instead, there was only silence, emptiness, a dreadful realization of something inescapable creeping upon his person.

Shoichi. Ai. Takeru.

They were his friends, his family. They had supported him, warned him, respected him. And, he had shrugged off their musings of worry, had ignored their pleas of logic. And, for what? For a boy who denied any claims of salvation? For a terrorist whose only good deed lied solely within the past?

Why had Yusaku so blindly invested all his faith into Ryoken? Why had he turned a cold shoulder to the people who’d been his friends all along, to the people who’d worked alongside him and asked for nothing more than a simple conversation? Why had he taken them all for granted, let them all slip through his fingers as he reached for something unreachable?

The answer came late.

Too late.

Yusaku realized it all with a sense of despair, putting together the pieces of his fantasy with his ever-growing sense of reality. He’d treated Ryoken like he had an idol of worship – wishing to see Ryoken playing the part of the perfect angel Yusaku thought he was. His friends however, the people who he entrusted his hopes to without really knowing it, had been taken.

An irony, really. Yusaku had put so much faith in Ryoken, in the voice and the ideal person he’d admired since childhood, and yet he had let himself become ignorant to the facts.

Shoichi had inspired him from the beginning, aiding his help in Yusaku’s endeavors even when Yusaku had dragged the man into his mess. Shoichi had been kind, patient, perhaps even tolerant of Yusaku’s failings, but when Yusaku had lost Ai and Takeru to Ryoken, he also lost Jin. He lost the brother that meant the world to Shoichi, the same brother that Yusaku had claimed he’d help.

Ai, his partner in crime and the last vestigial reminder of the Lost Incident, had done nothing wrong. Though doubts had clouded Yusaku’s mind about the Ignis, it was equally more true that Yusaku had come to depend on the AI for chatter and companionship, seeking refuge in the Ai’s knack for logic and its childish sense of humor. But, now, Ai was in Revolver’s hands. And Yusaku had given him away, so blind to Ryoken’s plans of using him that he’d let Ai go as soon as Ryoken had commanded it.

Takeru, though shy and yet simultaneously outgoing about his opinions, had earned Yusaku’s respect and appreciation from the moment they met each other. There was an equal kind of connection between them, a kind of knowing that bonded them together like strings of fate. They were lost kids, two of the handful of members who’d faced trauma together and sought to dismember it where it stood. Yet, Yusaku had watched as Takeru’s data was stolen from Soulburner’s body, giving way to despair as Takeru, too, was taken from him by Revolver.

Yusaku had lost all of them.

Shoichi. Ai. Takeru.

He had _lost_ them.

And, now, in the absence of their presence, he realized too late how much they had meant to him.

Friends.

They were his friends.

And, in the selfishness of his own actions, he hadn't realized how important they were to him until they were gone.

Alone, Yusaku despairs.

**Author's Note:**

> Shoutout to Neha for giving me this idea on Discord and Fly for the title
> 
> Big shoutout to you two both!
> 
> Edit: It's come to my attention thanks to some kind people that apparently people are angry at me for writing this and causing a lot of drama over this fanfic to the point of bashing it in a personal server. My intention by writing this was just to put my own spin on Datastorm out there even though I can see how the tags might have been misinterpreted. The tags on Datastorm were less about having a "pure" Datastorm and more of a "one-sided, hopeless, twisted" kind of Datastorm that I don't see very often but I crave. It wasn't necessarily to attack the ship or anything (as I love Datastorm too) but just give my own take on it. 
> 
> Therefore, I'm glad I have really thick skin because hearing this would upset any new author wanting to join in on fandom fun. I get it's not a popular take on Datastorm but it's really disheartening for a new author to hear that, already, the fanfiction is being complained about just because it doesn't fit the standard. It's really unfair to me to have to hear that and I really hope this person reconsiders their actions the next time they want to complain something as because that's really not cool to tear apart someone else's ideas just because they don't fit your own point of view


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